Automatic hopper fed painting machine



8, 1959 J. c. STANl EY ET AL 2,899,930

AUTOMATIC HOPPER FED PAINTING MACHINE Filed June 10, 1957 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. I

- A J. c. STANLEY 3 R. B. MOORE JR.

5 w. B. FRAZIEh 0.5 WILLIAMS ATTORNEYS r J. C. STANLEY ET'AL AUTOMATIC HOPPER FED. PAINTING MACHINE Aug. 18, 1959 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed June 10, 1957 mm mm mh mm mm mm v mm pmm mm 5 mm S R S ma m T -EEA mN Uu 0 WMOML SMFW 9% J RWC U ATTORNEYS Aug. 18, 1959 J. c. STANLEY ET AL 2,899,930

AUTOMATIC HOPPER FED PAINTING MACHINE Filed June 10, 1957 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 FIG. 6

iNVENTORS 4 SLJIQ United ttes Patent AUTOMATIC HOPPER FED PAINTING MACHINE John C. Stanley, Robert B. Moore, Jr., William B. Frazier, and Charles Fred Williams, Corinth, Miss., assignors to Gateway Corporation, Corinth, Miss.

Application June 10, 1957, Serial No. 664,739

2 Claims. (Cl. 118-404) This invention relates to the production of commodities of various kinds in substantial volume and includes coating, painting or otherwise finishing or surface treating the individual components, and to the mechanism or equipment employed in the handling, conveying, treating, inspecting and discharging of the articles in a productionline type of operation.

The invention relates particularly to mechanism or equipment for holding the articles, removing them one at a time, causing them to pass onto a conveyor, between feed rollers, through a guide tube, through a paint box valve and associated paint box and then through a squeegee discharge opening onto conveyors, through a dryer, through an inspection station, and subsequently to be discharged onto a storage rack.

The painting or coating of articles has been accomplished by dipping or immersing the articles in a liquid bath either manually or mechanically. This has required considerable time, labor, material, and supervision, and the articles finished have been rough and irregular and therefore of inferior quality on their exterior impairing the sale due to such finish.

It is an object of the invention to overcome the problems enumerated and to provide relatively simple and inexpensive apparatus for handling, applying a finish of excellent quality, and for drying articles economically and at a saving of time, labor and material without the care and constant attention of an operator.

Another object of the invention is to provide apparatus for applying a finish to articles one by one and with such apparatus including a hopper or container for the articles to be finished, conveying, painting and drying mechanism all operating to produce the desired end with minimum attention, labor and material.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. 1 is a top plan view illustrating one application of the invention;

Fig. 2, a fragmentary side elevation of one end of the machine; 4

Fig. 3, an enlarged fragmentary top plan view of the front end of the machine;

Fig. 4, a perspective view of the rear end portion of the machine;

Fig. 5, a perspective of the discharge end of the machine;

Fig. 6, a section on the line 4-4 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 7, an enlarged detailed section on the line 5-5 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 8, a section on the line 6-6 of Fig. 5;

Fig. 9, a section on the line 7-7 of Fig. 4; and

Fig. 10, a section on the line 88 of Fig. 1.

Briefly stated, the invention comprises a container or hopper for relatively round slender articles, with guiding and aligning mechanism for directing said articles to a position to be discharged, and with pressure means for exerting slight force upon said articles to press them 2,899,930 Patented Aug. 18, 1959 downwardly into contact with aligning mechanism from whence they are discharged onto a conveyor one at a time and carried endwise between rollers which feed them into a guide tube from which they traverse a paint supply control valve and a paint box or chamber in which they are coated with paint or other material. They are discharged from the paint box through a discharge opening provided with a squeegee or wiping means for removing excess coating from the article. The articles are discharged across a pair of spaced conveyors, the remote or outer edges of which are at a higher elevation than their inner edges so that the extremities only of the supported articles rest upon the conveyors, the articles are then conveyed beneath a bank of drying lamps or heat emitting or drying elements and are carried by an inspection station and discharged onto a rack for subsequent removal.

With continued reference to the drawings, a series of articles such as relatively round slender articles 10 adapted to be used as handles for brooms, mops and other devices adapted to be placed in a container or hopper having inclined supports 11 and 12 so that the articles will roll or move by gravity downwardly beneath inclined guides 13, 14 and 15 towards the lowermost side of the hopper from which they are adapted to be removed one by one.

The articles 10 are discharged one by one from the hopper upon a V-belt 16 extending around pulleys 17 with the uppermost run or face of the belt in contact with the article to be removed, such belt being driven from a shaft 18 on which one of the pulleys 17 is mounted, such shaft being provided with a pulley 19 driven by a belt 20 from a pulley 21 on a shaft 22, with such shaft being driven by a larger pulley 23 and a belt 24 from a motor 25 mounted on a frame member 26.

In order to move the articles onto the continuous V- belt 16 so that they may be carried forwardly endwise in a substantially straight line, a pressure pulley or roller with a soft surface is mounted on a shaft 28 carried in bearings 29, such shaft having fixed on its opposite end a pulley 30 about which is mounted a V-belt 31, such V-belt being driven from a pulley 32 on the shaft 18.

Rollers 33 are employed for retaining the articles 10 in aligned relation and as the articles are carried forward and discharged from the belt 16 they are fed between guide rollers 34 each mounted on a bracket 35. From the guide rollers 34 the article passes between one or more pairs of feed rollers 36 and 37,- mounted on shafts 38 and 39 respectively, in bearings 40 and 41, attached to plates 42 and 43.

The upper plate 42 is connected by a hinge 44 with the upper end of a support 45 (Figs. 1 and 7) carried by an angular frame member 46. A similar frame member 47 being provided in spaced relation for supporting the post 45. On the shaft 18 is mounted a pulley 48 which drives a belt 49 by means of a pulley 50 on the shaft 39. On this shaft 39 is another pulley 51 which drives a belt 52 and a pulley 53 on the shaft 39. The members 42 are urged downwardly by springs 54 such members being adjustably supported by means of externally threaded rods 55 secured in position by nuts '56. Members 42 are thus mounted in such a manner that by releasing the spring 54 the members 42 can be swung about the hinges 44 out of engagement with the article 10 either or both being capable of being swung upwardly depending upon the length of the handle being processed. The article next passes another pair of guide rollers 57 and into a guide tube 58 from whence it travels into a paint box or chamber 59 where it is coated or painted and then discharged through an opening 60 in the box. This opening is encircled by a flexible diaphragm or membrane 61 having an opening 62.

The paint box 59 is provided with a control member 63 having a reduced opening 64 through which the article is adapted to pass, such member 63 having external threads 65 which engage a threaded opening 66 in the paint box 59. If desired a reinforcing plate 67 may be provided around the threaded opening 66. The paint box may be disposed in a pan or container '68 and held therein 'by means of a clamping screw 69 engaging the rear faceof the paint box. The paint box is fastened by a bolt and nut 70 to a cross-plate 71 which engages the horizontal opposed flanges of a pair of angular frame members 72 thus permitting the paint box to be slidably adjusted along its support.

As the article leaves the feed rollers 36 and 37 it stops normally in the rubber squeegee strip 62 as shown in Fig. 9 and remains in this position until the next member 10 moved by the feed rollers 36 and 37 forces it out of the squeegee. It is important that each article 10 stop momentarily in this manner, since the application of colored lacquer to the member leaves a ring around the member at the point where the member stops in the rubber squeegee. The handle or other member therefore must stop with its leading end protruding slightly through the squeegee 62 as illustrated in Fig. l in order that the ring will be on the end of the handle or other member at the very tip and will not be objectionable.

The mechanism just described constitutes the front end portion of the machine and is disposed at right angles and adjusted relative to the rear end portion of the machine, such adjustment being possible due to the fact that the mechanism is supported on angular frame members 73 mounted on casters 7 4.

In the transfer of the articles from the painting to the drying mechanism these articles engage a stop 75. The movement of the articles is produced by the next successive article. When such article engages the stop 75 its ends rest upon substantially parallel conveyor belts 76 such belts being disposed with their remote edges at slightly higher elevations than their contiguous edges so that only the tips of the articles are in contact with the belts.

The belts 76 are mounted on rollers 77 carried on shafts 78 in bearings 79 on brackets 80 and 81 on a frame 82 carried on legs or other supports 83.

The conveyor belts 7 6 are driven by pulleys 84 mounted on the shafts 78 and driven by belts 85 from pulleys 86 driven through gear reduction mechanism 87 from a belt 88 by a motor 89. Beneath the upper-run of each of the conveyor belts 76 is a support 90 for maintaining the conveyors at the same elevations from end to end during the time the articles are being dried.

A series or bank of infra-red lights 91 is mounted on a panel 92 by means of a bracket 93 carried by a screw 94 engaged by a nut 95 and an operating handle 96 by which it can be rotated to adjust the elevation of the lights. The nut 95 is mounted on a bar 97 attached to crossmembers 98 mounted on spaced legs or supports 99. Both conveyor belts 76 carry the articles to an inspection area 4 comprising'horizontal members 100, and thereafter they are placed between upright posts 101 forming a rack from which they later may be removed. The members 100 are supported by legs or posts 102.

It will be apparent from the foregoing that apparatus is provided for surface treating round slender articles with only the minimum care of an attendant, such apparatus being adapted to receive a quantity of the articles to be treated and to remove and treat such articles one by one and finally discharge them onto a receiving structure from which they may be removed as desired. Further, the apparatus is capable of handling articles of different characteristics, parts of the apparatus being adjustable to accommodate articles of different sizes.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that various changes may be made in the invention without departing from the spirit and scope thereof and therefore the invention is not limited by that which is illustrated in the. drawings and described in the specification, but only as indicated in the accompanying claims.

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus for the treatment of round slender articles comprising a holder for such articles, means for removing such articles from said holder comprising upper and lower cooperating members between which said articles are adapted to be disposed one by one for endwise movement, article coating mechanism for receiving and coating articles, the upper cooperating member including a driven rotary member, the lower cooperating member including a conveyor providing a substantially continuous support on which the articles are adapted to rest and be carried along one by one, said cooperating members being spaced so that the rotary member moves the articles into alignment with the path of their movement, driving means for said rotary member and substantially continuous support.

2. Apparatus for the treatment of round slender articles comprising article coating mechanism for receiving and coating articles, conveyor means mounted in a position to receive the coated articles, said conveyor means having a plurality of movably mounted endless belts disposed side by side in spaced relation in a manner to provide inclined elongated supports disposed in substantially parallel relation with the remote portions of said supports at a higher elevation than the adjacent portions thereof for receiving and holding articles thereon at their extremities only, and means for moving said belts.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 102,893 Warth May 10, 1870 932,610 Hodgson Aug. 31, 1909 2,582,438 Jones Jan. 15, 1952 

